


Unmarked Signs

by possibly_fries



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), F/M, Fluff, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, georgie is still dead tho srry abt that, i dont mean to make mike the single pringle it just kinda happened, im soft i cant have the plotline w pennywise rn, look I know Stan is a bit ooc in the beginning but dont worry it gets cleared up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 05:20:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20222467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibly_fries/pseuds/possibly_fries
Summary: Eddie’s seventeen now, and his soul mark is toeing a fine line between ‘smudged barcode’ and ‘frantic EKG monitor.’ Given the circumstances, it seemed fair (at least to him) that after so many years of trying to tell himself otherwise, he could go ahead and give himself over to the concept that, yes— love is, indeed, bullshit. Still, his friends and family insisted otherwise.A.K.A, a culmination of events that lead to Eddie "Emotionally Constipated" Kaspbrak finally recognizing some major things about himself.





	1. Prologue

Everyone had a soul mark.

It began as a strange occurrence if someone would have one, and soon enough became even stranger if they _ didn’t. _

The mark never changed— A small script on the hip, your soulmate’s signature. It’d be there from the moment you were born. Granted, it was illegible at that point (simply because it was far too small to be made out as anything), but nonetheless it was there. Limited research had gone into these marks, as having one never harmed or helped anyone (well, as long as you don’t count finding your soulmate as “helping” you, mostly because it was more of a norm these days than a pleasantry). The extent of work that had gone into learning about the marks was more as to why someone _ wouldn’t _have one, to which it had been generally concluded that such an instance meant your soulmate was dead. 

The philosophy of ‘love is bullshit’ didn’t really enter Eddie’s head until he had given up trying to convince himself that his mark wasn’t a mistake after all. See, it was _ expected _ that the younger you are, the less legible your soul mark is. Still, there was some concern over the fact his mark looked like a deformed kidney bean. Nonetheless, doctors and his parents dismissed it as _ ‘Oh, he’ll grow into it.’ _

Eddie guessed that you _ could _consider the mark’s progression as ‘growing into it,’ if you expected it to grow further from a kidney bean and more into a misprinted barcode. Still, everyone kept up the matra.

Eddie’s seventeen now, and his soul mark is toeing a fine line between ‘smudged barcode’ and ‘frantic EKG monitor.’ Given the circumstances, it seemed fair (at least to him) that after so many years of trying to tell himself otherwise, he could go ahead and give himself over to the concept that, yes— love is, indeed, bullshit. Still, his friends and family insisted otherwise: 

_ Maybe it still needs to develop more? _ Eddie had reached his full stature of five foot five long before any of these suggestions (much to his chagrin), so that was out of the question. Maybe it was his small size that made it such a piss-poor excuse at chicken scratch. Maybe, except that Beverly was only a couple inches taller than him, and you could easily make her mark out ( _ ‘Benjamin Hanscom.’ _Seeing it never made him feel any better). So, yea— His point still stands: It’s bullshit.

_The handwriting must just be bad. _It wasn’t _totally _impossible, but it didn’t help that fact he felt his chest tighten and a low heat burn in the pit of his stomach every time he would notice his friends’ marks beautifully scrawled across their skin. He wasn’t mad at _them, _per say, more at his shitty luck, _especially _if it was only because of bad handwriting. But what was even shittier than love and his luck was his ability to keep his anger in check. He’d manifest his feelings unhealthily, and (on the rare occasions it was particularly bad) say a few things he’s regret. It wasn’t fair to them, sure, but it’s not like the world was particularly fair to him, either.

_ It could be in another language. _Last he checked, Eddie never heard of the foreign language ‘drunken baby,’ so that was out of the question. 

Despite his consistent resentment of fate and the world and the God that may-or-may-not-be, any stranger passing by would never know that Eddie loathed the hand he was dealt.1 Aside from his occasional outbursts with friends, he’d gotten pretty good at the whole “denial” thing. It was amazing what the human mind could do, and Eddie’s mind was very good at imagining that everything was totally fine, and succer-punching the rational reminder that it wasn’t just that back into submission. Because of this, Eddie had become jaded at a pretty young age, and because of _ that _ he’d developed a quick, dry wit. Eddie would never shoot off at the mouth with any authoritarian figure, but his peers played a whole other ballgame. He’d become rather talented at talking back to anyone who dared cross him, and in elementary found a couple of boys who could hold their own against him. More accurately, he found _ a _boy— Stan clung to Bill’s side, so he was more a friend by forced association rather choice. The three of them trotted about like the main cast of a sitcom, inseparable and content with their little friendship bubble they’d built. 

Summer of fourth grade thrust upon them the whirlwind that was Richie Tozier. From the moment he arrived, all boisterous laughter and wild curls, the universe first began to tighten strings. The years that followed and its culmination of events are simply a byproduct of this tension preparing to erupt, and no amount of skillfully implemented denial could keep Eddie from facing what’s to come when those strings break. 


	2. Chapter One

Eddie bounced his leg impatiently, flinging his arm up to glance at his watch again. If he didn’t get here in the next three minutes, Eddie was walking to school and that was that. He really needed to try and talk Bill into letting him carpool with him in Stan’s Volkswagen, but Stan was to the point now he wouldn’t so much as  _ look  _ at any of The Losers if he had the option, so Eddie doubted he’d be allowed in his car. Eddie stood up from his spot on his front porch as a familiar white truck rounded the curb. He all but threw himself into the passenger’s seat, cutting off Richie just as he opened his mouth. 

“You’re late,” he said.

“I’m in the grace period!” Richie replied, shifting the gear into reverse. 

“Stop calling it that, you’re late and you know it. If you don’t stop taking thirty minutes to yank it every morning I’m going to buy a bus pass,” Eddie said, shuffling his bag to fit between his feet. 

Richie chuckled, “Yea, ‘yanking it to this gorgeous gig every morning. You know, it takes a lot of effort to look this good before eight.” He punctuated this by looking in the rearview mirror, licking his fingertips, and smoothing them along his eyebrows. Eddie curled his upper lip in disgust at him. Every morning Richie looked like he got dressed in the dark and hadn’t taken a brush to his head in years. Eddie had told him this several times before, but it only garnered some response about Richie sleeping with Eddie’s mom, and he didn’t want to hear that right now.

“It takes a lot of effort to put up with all of your horseshit before eight, so don’t use that as an excuse,” Eddie said, annoyance evident.

The inside of Richie’s car looked how Eddie imagined it was inside Richie’s brain: That was, say, a mess. Richie was good about refraining from leaving actual scraps of food in his car, which was probably the only thing keeping the truck from being infested with raccoons at this point. However, there were more than enough food  _ wrappers _ strewn about the cab to compensate for that. Amongst those wrappers were about a dozen empty soda cans, some miscellaneous assignments that he never turned in, broken pencils, and maybe two or three cigarette cartons he didn’t hide very well. 

“Really?” Eddie asked, plucking a carton off the floor between his feet, “I thought you said you were quitting for New Years?”

Richie scoffed. “Sorry doctor K, I promise I’ve been drinking my milk and eating my veggies if that’ll make you feel better,” he said. 

Eddie frowned. “Yea, that’ll really help your lungs keep from building an extra inch of tar. How long has it been since you fell off the wagon?” Eddie turned the package over, scanning the health hazards and disclaimers in small print. 

“I’m not getting a lecture right now,” Richie said, “we still have a year of highschool left before I’m required to sit through those, and I’ve heard Berkeley profs aren’t kind about producing shortened versions of them.” 

This effectively shut Eddie up. His careful reading turned into staring blankly at the miniscule print, and he scrunched the flimsy cardboard just enough to make the sides curve under his fingers. No amount of back-and-forth could hide the fact Eddie didn’t want Richie to move away so soon.1 Richie wasn’t a star athlete, nor did his parents have much money, so he was banking on his grades to get him “far away from this shithole” (as he had once put it). He had gone on about making it onto SNL for years now, and his plan was to get into Berkeley so he would be hours from Derry and a short jog from the L.A. area. 

“Do you know how many comedy clubs there must be on the strip?” he’d asked no one in particular one night during a rant to the group. 

“Do  _ you  _ even know?” Stan had responded, tone dripping with exasperation. His face was mostly obstructed by the book he was being constantly interrupted from reading. Eddie was surprised he didn’t beg Bill to let them leave sooner.

“Okay smartass, I’m being serious for once!” Richie said as he threw himself upside down on Ben’s couch, draping his long legs over the back of it. “All I’d have to do is waltz in there, put on the classic  _ Tozier Charm _ , and I’d have a representative knocking on my door in no time!”

The group was mostly supportive of his dream, because (though they would never admit it to his face), Richie was getting better at making actual jokes. It was less “Your mom” and rather pedestrian impressions now2 , and— on a particularly lucky occasion— he made Beverly choke on her drink from laughing so hard. Eddie could practically feel him glowing with pride over it, and that self-serving electricity was still there to this day.

No one really said much more about his rant, and Eddie budded in significantly less than usual for the rest of that evening. He might as well have gone out and gotten ‘Codependent’ tattooed on his forehead right then and there, if the understanding glances the group sent each other at his half-hearted jabs were anything to go by.

Since the first week of senior year, Richie had been more on edge than what was characteristically normal for him, and it only increased with every day that went by without a letter back from Berkeley. He’d applied to them not long before junior year ended, which Eddie chastised him for because “That’s not nearly enough time for a school like that to get back to you by graduation! I hope you’re prepared to spend an extra year hauling parts at the yard.3 ” Richie had thrown a pencil at him and they fell into a comfortable squabble, and Eddie ignored the fact that his stomach dropped every time the damned university was mentioned after that. He made a mental note to deal with the implications of what it could mean later.4

“You won’t be able to hear me lecture you over the sound of your iron lung if you keep it up,” Eddie said, a bit quieter than he’d anticipated. Richie glanced at him, confused.

“Dude, what?” he asked.

“Me giving you a lecture on smoking, I said you won’t—”

“ _ Smoking? _ ” Richie hit the brakes a bit too hard at the stoplight, turning to Eddie to give him a slightly amused look. “Eds, you zoned out, like, a solid minute ago, how am I supposed to know you’re still on  _ that  _ conversation?” he asked. Eddie blinked, he’d been blanked for  _ how long?  _ He wasn’t going to dwell on it right now, though, because thinking too hard would just make it happen again. 

“You good?” Richie asked, “you keep going quiet when we’re driving to school lately.” He sounded genuinely concerned, and god dammit that did things to Eddie. When they were younger, he was content to just bite back at anything that concocted in Richie’s brain and tumbled out of his mouth like actual garbage being disposed of. Nowadays, however, Eddie found it more and more difficult to brush off any inkling on genuineness in Richie’s tone. 

Right around summer of their sophomore year, they realized that they were the only two friends in the group who didn’t abandon the bond they’d formed in childhood. Everyone was getting older, caring about new things and forgetting the past. 

But not Richie or Eddie. 

No, of course not Richie or Eddie, Eddie couldn’t get so lucky as to move on with his teenage angst like the rest of them. Richie was a constant in his life, and whether he admitted it or not,5 he was rather okay with that. Because they stayed so close, they only got closer. If there was a problem, the other knew immediately. Richie has never been very good at not talking, so one day he just started asking what was wrong. 

“What’s up?” Richie had asked him as he picked the paint off his yellow pencil. Eddie plucked the utensil from his fidgeting fingers, and had mumbled something about how he’s dropping shit all over his comforter. It took a moment of Richie’s expectant staring to get Eddie to process what he was asked. 

“What do you mean?” Eddie asked. Richie sighed, pushing himself up off his stomach to slump against the wall. 

“I mean you haven’t said a word since we sat down,” Richie replied. Eddie frowned, trying to make eye contact for his quip back, but Richie had looked at him like he needed to think about what he said very carefully, lest so much as a singular wrong word cause Eddie to crumble right before him. Eddie decided to look down silently instead, pulling at the fibers of his shag carpet.

“If something’s bothering you, you can talk about it with me,” Richie said quietly.

The suddenness and sincerity of the statement took Eddie aback. It was a drastic change of tone for them, and he sure as hell didn’t know what he was supposed to say to that. 

He never did tell Richie what was bothering him, rather thanked him for his concern and tried to return to the comic books spread out in front of him. It was the beginning of a new layer to what they’d come to know as ‘Richie and Eddie,’ and he was more than a little hesitant to let it grow. Now, whenever Richie asked if something was up, it just pissed Eddie off simply for hurting his pride.6

He’d been thinking for too long.  _ Oh no, _ Eddie thought. He had to come up with something, fast _ .  _ So, he said the first thing that came to his mind:

“Well I wouldn’t have to worry about you knowing what subject we’re on if you stopped talking for two minutes.” 

_ Nice one, Eds,  _ he thought,  _ that totally helps.  _ Richie smirked and oh Christ, Eddie knew that smirk, that’s the “I’m-about-to-say-something-aggressively-sexual” smirk. Richie drummed his slender fingers on the steering wheel and slightly pursed his lips in a moment of contemplation.

“You can get me to stop talking for more than two minutes by letting me su—”

“Beep beep, dipshit,” Eddie said, throwing the cigarette carton he’d been turning over in his hands at him. It bounced off Richie’s head and he laughed. Whether he laughed at his own joke or the reaction it earned was lost to Eddie, because he was just glad they weren’t acting so serious for the time being. They drove the rest of the way in relative silence.

None of the Losers had a class with more than one of the others at any given point in the day, which made lunch all the more exciting. Sure, they hung out on some weekends or after school at times, but it was one of the few things they could count on to consistently bring them together. 

Beverly was about 300 words deep into her rant about her anthropology teacher when Richie dramatically threw his head back, loudly snoring. She lowered the sandwich she’d been gesturing with, glaring at him.

“Seriously?” she asked. Richie snickered, leaning forward on his elbows.

“Yes, seriously. You have a different problem with this woman every day, why don’t you just switch classes?” he asked. 

“Because we’re three weeks deep into the semester and everyone knows the counselor’s don’t wanna hear it unless the teacher is  _ actually  _ threatening you with a knife,” she replied, irritated. 

Richie clapped his hands together loudly. “Now  _ there’s  _ an idea!” he exclaimed, “You’ve got a perfectly good pocket knife, Bev— just go full Bowers on her and we won’t have to hear about her sandy vagina putting a damper on your fourth period every day!”

Beverly frowned at him, scooping up some plaster-thick potatoes on her spoon. She pulled back on the bowl of it, the cheap plastic easily bowing. As soon as the food glob catapulted across the table, Richie thrust up a book to block his face. At the  _ splat, _ he flashed a satisfied and smug smile over the hardcover.

“You absolute ass!” Eddie all but squealed, snatching the book out of his hands, “I need this later, do you have any idea how many preservatives are in that shit?” He held the book close to his face, inspecting it. He sighed, glowering at Richie. 

“I’m never going to get that all out, and it’s not even mine! The library said—”

“Library?” Richie interrupted, “You go to the library?”

Eddie blinked. “Yea? Every week, you went with me just the other day, dumba—”

“Do they accept v-cards now? Because last I checked, that’s the only card you haven’t racked up any charges on.” Richie’s sentence ended in a snort, trying not to laugh at his own joke before he could even finish it. The bitter expression Eddie looked at him with was all Richie needed to be sent into a full-on belly laugh, and his knuckles paled with how hard he gripped the edge of the table. Eddie scowled at him, attempting to wipe the potatoes on Richie’s overshirt. 

“That’s so not funny and you know it,” he said.

Ben reached across the table, pulling Eddie’s arm and the book back down to the flat surface. 

“Can we have an actual conversation for maybe  _ one  _ day,” he looked between them, “no complaining or fighting involved?” Him and the rest of the group were staring at the pair patiently. Apparently everyone was having a rough day, but it wasn’t Eddie’s fault Richie was being a complete prick.7 Eddie paused before he lightly hit Richie (who was still giggling to himself) in head with the book. He huffed, angrily taking a napkin to it.

“Thank you, Ben,” Stan said. Eddie had almost forgotten he was there, he didn’t think he’d even  _ looked  _ at the group since he entered the cafeteria. Stan was pretty much glued to Bill’s side anymore, and Eddie unintentionally frowned at him. 

Bill and Stan always knew they had each other’s soul marks, but Stan wasn’t allowed to start dating until he was sixteen. That didn’t mean they  _ weren’t  _ dating before then, it just meant that they weren’t as obvious about it. Once Stan was old enough, though, he situated himself comfortably at Bill’s side and pretty much never left.8

It made Eddie irrationally angry. 

Not at them— Bill deserved the world, especially after what he went through with Georgie. Eddie was pretty sure it was impossible for anyone (except Bill himself) to be upset with Bill, so he absolutely wasn’t angry at Bill. Hell, he wasn’t even mad at Stan, despite the shit he’d pulled. See, Richie was the first of the Losers Stan gave the cold shoulder, but he gave Eddie the same treatment shortly thereafter, which meant Eddie had a little less than what he’d call a fondness for him anymore. Stan never outright bullied him, though, just ignored him (and it wasn’t like he was the only one in the group being ignored, too). Eddie saw how happy Stan made Bill, and with all this considered, he couldn’t truly hate the guy. So, no; he wasn’t angry at  _ them _ . 

He was angry at  _ himself  _ for shitting all over their happy ending. 

Eddie wasn’t going to get what they have, and he was all too aware of that. He remembered being much smaller, Bill innocently asking what was wrong with Eddie’s mark. He didn’t get a chance to reply before Bill was proudly declaring, “Stan and I have matching marks, look,” accompanied by him raising his shirt to display the signature. Eddie didn’t have the right to be a dick about it, not then and certainly not now. 

Despite this (and himself), he always felt his chest get a little tighter at the sight of the two being so disgustingly, unapologetically, in love. 

Eddie dug at his mark unconsciously. 

“That work for you?” Mike asked. Eddie let go of his hip and looked up from where he was squirting way too much pocket hand sanitizer onto his book. 

“Sorry, what?” He asked. 

“Bill’s place is open for a homework group tonight; figured we’d show up at six, order a pizza at seven, pack it up at eight. Does that work for you?” Mike asked again. 

Eddie quickly shivered off his previous thoughts before nodding. 

“Oh, yea, right, that’s uh— Sure, that’s fine. I’ll be a bit late, I have to talk to my mom first but count on me showing. I’ll call if I can’t,” he replied, returning to furiously scrubbing at the now gone “stain.” Mike gave him a slow nod, obviously confused. Still, he turned his attention back to Bill and continued whatever conversation they were engaged in. 

Eddie huffed, deciding the book was as clean as he could get it for now. He stood and walked his pile of used napkins over to the trash can. Richie was to his feet in seconds, on Eddie’s heels almost the whole way. Eddie jammed the paper into the can, swiveling around furiously to face Richie. 

“Could you give me some room? I’d rather not get out my inhaler.” Eddie said sternly.

“What’s up with you?” Richie asked. 

Eddie squinted at him, crossing his arms. “Nothing’s ‘up with me,’ I’m fine,” he said. 

Richie scoffed. “Sure, that’s why you were listening to me even less than usual this morning and gave Stan the stink eye for, like, thirty full seconds,” he said. A moment of recognition flashed behind his eyes. “Is this about your mark? Because I’m telling you, I don’t care what the others say, I see ‘Myra’ in there and—”

“God, will you  _ please  _ shut up for a second?” Eddie snapped. Richie quieted a little too effectively, taking a step back. Eddie sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“Look, it’s fine, I’ll tell you at Bill’s all about my minor inconveniences if you stop asking for the rest of the day. Can I get that from you?” he asked. Eddie knew full well that whenever he said this, he really meant he’d produce some lame, abridged version of what was  _ actually  _ bothering him to get Richie off his back for a couple more weeks. The corners of Richie’s mouth pulled up so far they might as well have touched his ears, which said he gobbled up that lie like every other time. 

“You’ve got it, boss!” Richie said in a shitty Italian accent, punctuating it with a salute. 

Eddie groaned.

“We’re doing the voices right now, seriously? It’s like, noon,” he said.

“And what better time to start making ‘em than teatime, governor?” Richie said in a British accent, draping his arm across Eddie’s shoulders. Eddie swatted him away, the two walking back towards the table. 

“Don’t do the British guy— also do you even fucking know when teatime actually is? No, you don’t, because you live in Derry fucking Maine, asshole,” he said. 

Richie giggled, and Eddie didn’t protest when Richie put his arm around him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Especially not to anyone else who had functioning eyes, which was probably why Richie was the only one who couldn’t tell.   
2 That wasn’t to say they were gone forever, rather Richie finally learned he could pull other tricks out of his hat than just saying “Doesn’t smell like caca to me, senor!” in an offensive accent.   
3 Richie had worked at the local scrap yard since July of their junior year, partially because it was the only place that would take him. He only stayed because he could “borrow” parts for his truck from there, which Eddie was fairly certain was an offense punishable by law if he ever got caught.   
4 He never did.   
5 Again: He never did.   
6 Because, c’mon, he couldn’t be _that _obvious every time he was mildly distressed, right?   
7 _Maybe _it was on him for always jabbing back, but really— who wouldn’t?   
8 Except maybe to go to the bathroom, but at this point they weren’t even sure of _that _anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> 1 This was true, strangers would never know. The problem was Eddie lived in a small town from the day he was born. No one ever left and all the adults seemed to be immortal, so “strangers” weren’t really a group he’d encounter often. Above all else, his mother had a mouth the size of Anaheim, so it’s not like the residents of Derry weren’t acutely filled in on his little “affliction.”


End file.
